Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] [Wireshark-commits] rev 38304: /trunk/epan/dissectors/ /trunk/epan/dissectors/:

[Jeff Morriss <jeff.morriss.ws@xxxxxxxxx>]

Stephen Fisher wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 03, 2011 at 09:36:40PM -0400, Maynard, Chris wrote:
>
> > > On Tue, Aug 02, 2011 at 11:22:03AM -0400, Jeff Morriss wrote:
> > >
> > > > Do we already require Python to build Wireshark [even from a source
> > > > distribution]?
> > > I don't think so.
> > Isn't it?
>
> > ===>    C:\Python27\python.exe: /cygdrive/c/Python27/python.exe     <===
>
> Sorry, I was thinking along the lines of "do we require python to be 
> linked into Wireshark" which is no.  But yes, we do use it for building.  
> AFAIK, it is only used to build register.c and packet-ncp2222.c.  At 
> least for register.c, it can also be built with /bin/sh but much more 
> slowly.

But this still doesn't mean it's *required* for building from a source 
tarball.  And I think we don't: the README says you only need Python if 
you're going to modify the NCCP dissector (that is, rebuild 
packet-ncp2222.c).  As you say, building register.c falls back to sh if 
Python's not there.

(So building the ASN.1 dissectors at compile time would add a 
requirement to those building from the source tarballs.)